Posts filed under Mobile Phone Industry

The noughties was a decade of tremendous innovation for mobile phones that saw the total number of phones worldwide reach a staggering 3,973,453,793 (and counting).

Megapixels rose, gizmo upon gizmo was shoe-horned into phones that got ever thinner.

Today, as we start a new decade, it’s worth looking back to see how we got to where we are now. In the process, we’ll answer such burning questions as:

• which mobile phones were the icons of the Noughties?
• how did we get from featureless phones with tiny black and white screens to the technological marvels of the iPhone and the Droid?
• which mobile manufacturer saw its market share go from 21.1% to 4.5%?
• which was the single most important year for mobile phones in the entire decade and why?
• and what was the most successful mobile phone of the decade?

Read on and all will be revealed!

Music streaming service Spotify has hit a winning streak. Not content with winning awards for its Web-based music-streaming service, it’s also set to take the mobile world by storm, firstly with a Spotify app for Android phones (above, and in the video below) and the iPhone, and now with a dedicated Spotify phone.

Most companies are happy enough with just a smartphone app to add to their Web app, but Spotify figures that it might as well go the whole hog and build an entire phone around its service. And why not? If Twitter and Facebook can do it, then surely the world’s most talked about music streaming service can too?

But a Spotify phone won’t just shake up the mobile phone world – it’ll shake up Starbucks, too. Read on after the jump to see how…

In what seems like an almost unprecedented move, O2 and AT&T have collectively managed to annoy their respective UK and US customers in one go following yesterday’s announcement of the new iPhone 3G S.

They’ve both come up with new pricing plans that serve to do one thing to their loyal (not to mention, extremely cash-strapped) customers: screw ‘em!

You might have noticed the recent blanket coverage of mobile phone recycling companies such as MazumaMobile and Envirofone on TV recently (well, you might if you’re UK-based, anyway!). These ads are on nearly 24/7, encouraging you to part with your mobile phone in exchange for some juicy cash.

Just how much do you get for your old phones, though, and what happens when you send them off?

During a day in which Sony Ericsson released worst than expected figures for 2008, Sony haven’t exactly helped matters by allegedly refusing to allow Sony Ericsson to put the sacred PlayStation brand on a new range of gaming phones.

Rumours involving Sony’s snub have being circulating for sometime, but apparently Sony Ericsson made a formal proposal to the Sony board in December for access to the PlayStation brand that was categorically refused. Since then, relations between the two companies have become increasingly strained, leading some to wonder whether Sony is preparing to walk away from the partnership.

The announcement by Sony Ericsson of losses reaching EUR 129 million for the last quarter of 2008 (or a loss of EUR 262 million if you include restructuring costs) has only added fuel to the fire.

Google’s Open Handset Alliance (OHA), the group of technology and mobile companies that it set up around the Google Android mobile operating system, has just announced that it’s signed up another 14 companies who will “…either deploy compatible Android devices, contribute significant code to the Android Open Source Project, or support the ecosystem through products and services that will accelerate the availability of Android-based devices.”

Google must be jumping with delight at this news, at they’ve managed to bag some big names. Top of the list must come Sony Ericsson, who announced that they’re working on a new Google Android phone. Other big hitters include Toshiba (who we can only hope release an Android phone on some decent hardware, so that it’s not as appalling as their current range of Portege smartphones!), Vodafone, and, more interestingly, Sat-Nav company Garmin.

More details after the jump.

The iPhone 3G seems to be the iPhone that everyone always wanted, at least if the number of iPhones now being sold is any indication. Foxconn, the company that produces the iPhone for Apple, has ramped up production and is now producing 800,000 iPhones a week!

Early estimates suggested that Apple would originally shift 25 million iPhones a year, but if they can sustain the current rate of sales, they’ll be on target to shift 40 million. This should, of course, be put into context of the overall mobile phone market, with over 1 billion phones being sold each year, with Nokia selling 435 million of them. However, 40 million sales of just one product that’s not even two years old yet is a tremendous achievement, and shows that Apple truly has broken into the mobile marketplace, and isn’t about to crash and burn like some early forecasts predicted.

[Source: TechCrunch]

In a move that puts further distance between itself and its two floundering rivals, Nokia has slashed the price of its mobile phones by up to ten percent. The biggest fall in price has been made on its music and media phones (specifically, the Nokia 5310, 5610 and N81 8GB), putting particular pressure on Sony Ericsson’s Walkman range and Motorola’s ROKR range.

Nokia holds a commanding lead in the mobile phone market with 41% market share, and makes a healthy profit. In contrast, two of the big five mobile phone firms are floundering. Motorola has already announced it’s spinning off its loss-making mobile phone division as the huge losses it’s been making are dragging the entire company down. More recently, Sony announced that its profits were also being hit by its mobile phone division, Sony Ericsson.

Sony Ericsson made just $6 million in the April – June quarter, a massive 97% drop from the same period last year, when it posted a $220 million profit. The company announced it is shedding some 2,000 jobs to help stem the losses, but it may only be a matter of time before Sony decides to go down the Motorola route and spin off its mobile phone company from the main parent group (although this will be more difficult to achieve than it was for Motorola, due to Ericsson’s stake in the joint partnership).

For us consumers, though, all this is good news isn’t it? Price cuts, cheaper phones – where’s the harm in that? Find out after the jump.

More bad news for Motorola as most of the other major mobile phone manufacturers have announced their latest sales figures for the second quarter of 2008. LG, it seems, have had an especially good time eating into Motorola’s US dominance, and having shifted 27.7 million handsets in the second three months of 2008, they’re now officially the third largest mobile phone manufacturer by sales.

Complete rankings, sales and units shifted of the top five mobile phone manufacturers after the jump.

Motorola, whose loss making mobile phone division is being split from the main company in an effort to save it from sinking entirely, is suing former Motorola executive Michael Fenger for allegedly helping Apple to further the success of the iPhone. Fenger is now VP of Apple’s global iPhone sales, and according to Motorola, he allegedly gave Apple corporate secrets from Motorola, secrets which were presumably built up by the company after years of selling mobile phones.

However, as tenuous lawsuits go, this one takes some beating. If the secrets were so sensitive that they helped Apple sell more phones than the competition, why didn’t Motorola actually use them so it too could sell more phones, rather than sit back and watch as its market share and profits took a sickening slide into oblivion?!

If there’s a phone company out there who’s been less clueless than Motorola in selling phones in the past few years, I haven’t seen them! As secrets go, I can’t imagine they’re ones that anyone would be desperate to get their hands on!

Picture the trial, with the prosecution alleging that Fenger actively gave away the secrets of Motorola’s success.

The defence then steps forward, and enquires as to the value these secrets actually brought Motorola in the past 18 months.

“Minus $1.6 billion!” answers the prosecution.

Case dismissed!!

[Source: Electronista]